CB America V
Track 1: Fanfare For The New Atlantis, Hovhaness
This is Classical Break on
Somer Valley FM, and I’m Rupert Kirkham.
Today’s programme of music from the United States was researched and written
by Michael Burrows. We’ve just heard Fanfare For The New Atlantis by Alan
Hovhaness. Atlantis, a city fabled
retrospectively for its advanced civilization, science and philosophy, is said
to have disappeared beneath stormy waves of the Mediterranean, to be Invoked by ancient scholars
and neo-Platonists of the 17th Century alike, a kind of missing link
in the chain of human culture, a void on which any imagination could work
wonders of Utopia and hopeful searching for solutions to earthly and heavenly
mysteries, its true geographical and historical position or
circumstances of loss being not the least of those mysteries.
Hovhaness’ music calls forth this State of
story in effortless grandeur of broad paragraphs, fluid but unobscure harmony and
rich but clear-lined, trumpet--led orchestration, timeless, sombre, pure, with
ancient gravity wrought out of chant and responses of deliberate weight, melody
forming the rhythmical patterns, adorned by brass tuckets on one note and,
latterly, thrilling scalic rushes in the string-section. Some long-lost marvel rises up before our
eyes. An extraordinary vision, this, from
1975.
The United States has
developed an enviable variety in self-expression in All genres of
Art-music: symphonists of the calibre
of Hovhaness, Ives, Copland, Schuman, Sowerby,
Harris... and purveyors of morelight-weight music whose productions,
though popular, are also to be discussed as an artistic achievement. In light music, Jazz, though in itself an
inexhaustibly creative tradition, surely doesn’t have things all its own
way. What are we to make, for example,
of this spry and sage song written in evident heartfeltness by the immensely vigorous and prolific March-king,
John Philip Sousa?
Track 2: You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married,
Sousa
You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married, by Sousa.
Track 3: Taking Leave of A Friend, Avshalamov
One name in our list of great
symphonists of the United States may not be well-known to even many
Americans. Leo Sowerby, known largely for
his church-music and songs, wrote 5 symphonies for orchestra, one for
solo-singers, choir and orchestra and
two for organ-solo. The Second orchestral Symphony was written in 1927-8, when Sowerby was 32 years old, his career as
composer and choir--master and teacher well into its stride, with frequent
large-scale commissions from the then
conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock to live up
to. In three movements, the Symphony in
B Minor is a compact, well-argued piece, elliptical and introspective, in which
power is derived from limitation of means.
The first movement, Sonatina, is
formed from two subjects with a bridge-passage between them. The first subject is chant-like, with some
jazzy irregularity of rhythm and teasing turns of harmony. The bridge passage brings one to a less busy
but somehow restless, questioning lyricism.
Development follows, with percussively underlined fragments of the chant
in canon and imitation, combined with the second subject, which is as summarily
dealt-with. The First Subject and
bridge-passage only are recapitulated, the bridge-passage elaborated and, after
further squalls, the close gives almost the last word to the bridge-passage, as
fresh in high woodwind as at first, but the dying fall belongs to the first
subject, smoothed, but defiantly in the minor.
This is fascinating, teasing music, recognizably of its time and nation,
every bit as effective as the symphonies of Copland, and of similar sources in
Americana – perhaps of urban jazz and New England, with a soupcon of the
Mid-West.
Track 4: 2nd Symphony
in B Minor, Movt 1: Sonatina, Sowerby
Track 5: The Bridge At Remagen, Bernstein
It should be noted that to score
a piece for brass wholly con sordino is a fine way to create almost
the dullest sound imaginable; only a real or exceptionally self--important
composer would set himself such a challenge.
Then again, mutes ensure that the clashes in the parts are set up
without unintentional resonance. Angels is, as perhaps it should be, a
remote, hieratic experience for the listener, immediate and becomingly terse. Angels are not necessarily beings of
heat.
Track 6: Angels, Ruggles
A livelier, percussive,
section treats Lincoln’s wilder days of youth – Copland utilizing his own gift
for ‘American’ Tunes and sonorities - and adding Campdown Races for good measure. At the close of this scherzando section, the
music broadens as destiny – or mysterious fatality – takes over.
The third section brings the
piece to its climax – the spoken word and – at last, the Gettysburg Address
capped with Springfield Mountain, most
poignantly given to a Taps - or Last
Post-like trumpet. The piece ends in an abiding expression of
wonder, love and inspiration. Is this
President Lincoln or another New Atlantis that we hear rise before us? The symbol is perhaps greater than any man, but
a hint of the ideals that we should serve as citizens as well as
individuals. Certainly, no modern
politician in his or her right mind should set him- or herself up as speaker in
this piece; to do so insults the historic symbol and is bound to let down
listeners in their actual hopes; no real politician can be a Lincoln, and
no-one should ever clothe him- or herself in words that will certainly dwarf
him or her – as kingly robes dwarf Macbeth.
Those politicians who try (and
some have unaccountably done so), sound absurd or flatly disingenuous.
This is Classical Break on
Somer Valley FM, and I’m Rupert
Kirkham. Today’s programme of American
music was written and researched by Mike Burrows. We hope that you enjoyed it and will tune in
again soon.
Goodbye!
Track 7: Lincoln Portrait, Copland
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